National Jazz Museum in Harlem April 2013 Schedule

This April, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem continues to offer a wide range of top quality free programming and affordable concerts from jazz’s most celebrated musicians, educators and historians. With International Jazz Day on April 30th our Jazz For Curious Listeners series this month focuses on international artists discussing and demonstrating jazz from around the world and culminates with an international jazz jam blowout with Jonathan Batiste on April 30th at MIST Harlem. Our Scandinavian and European followers may be able to join Loren Schoenberg's IJD events in Norway and The Netherlands.

For our friends on the West Coast, join the museum’s Artistic Director Loren Schoenberg for a discussion on the Savory collection at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center.

We hope to see you, your family and friends at as many of our events as you can make during this exciting month at The National Jazz Museum in Harlem. You’re bound to meet other similarly exciting, interesting and vital people – like yourselves!

Saxophonist, composer, and producer, Ole Mathisen presents and discusses tracks spanning his 25 year career as a recording artist. Emphasizing cross-cultural jazz projects, the session will encompass collaborations starting in Boston right after graduating from Berklee College of Music in Boston with drummer extraordinaire Bob Moses, all the way up until todays work with cutting edge groups like the chamber jazz ensemble FFEAR, Iraqi maqam and jazz infused Two Rivers, and contemporary latin jazz ensemble, Afromantra. The session will include a short demonstration of developing a micro-tonal and a fluid odd-meter rhythmic language on the saxophone.

Leading up to our April 30th International Jazz Day concert at MIST, Jazz For Curious Listeners is focusing on the global influence of jazz with NYC’s premiere jazz musicians from around the world. This evening, join guitarist Rez Abbasi as he discusses South Asian music and its connection to Jazz. For over a decade, Abbasi has been blazing a new trail as a leading figure in South Asian - American cutting edge jazz. His work spans far and wide, performing in award-winning groups as Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Indo- Pak Coalition and Kinsmen and Indian Juno award winning vocalist, Kiran Ahluwalia’s group along with many other projects. In 2012, Abbasi was voted #2 Rising Star Guitarist in Down Beat magazine's prestigious International Critic's Poll. Rez Abbasi migrated to the US from Pakistan at age four. Since an early age he has immersed himself in both western and eastern music, studying and performing with a variety of Indian classical musicians as well as jazz musicians. His compositions and playing reflect his individuality and create an ideal hybrid of modern jazz and world inflections.

Rez has released several albums as a leader, from acoustic guitar driven quartet music, to electrified organ trio featuring Indian vocals. His ultra - modern quintet, Invocation pulls all aspects of his persona into a cohesive, distinctive voice, rarely paralleled in today’s jazz. Including band mates, Mahanthappa, Vijay Iyer, Dan Weiss, Johannes Weidenmueller and guest, Kiran Ahluwalia, Invocation’s debut release, Things To Come (sunnyside 2009) was included in Downbeat magazine’s ‘best albums of the decade’. That same year Rez received the prestigious Chamber Music America New Works grant for composition. For Invocation’s second release, Suno Suno (enja 2011) and his eighth recording, Rez’s compositions focused on a musical form from Pakistan called, Qawwali. With hard-driving grooves and sophisticated melodies, Suno Suno ended the year on many critics ‘best of’ lists.

Jazz Is: Now! has become the museum’s most popular program – hosted by Jonathan Batiste and is Stay Human band, it’s a must for people who want to feel the live buzz and electricity of jazz in the moment! Join us back at the Dance Theatre of Harlem for a very special night- you’re in for a treat!

Friday, April 12, 2013

PBS: American Songbook and the NJMH Savory Collection

Look for the NJMH on PBS’s acclaimed MICHAEL FEINSTEIN’S AMERICAN SONGBOOK series on Friday 4/12. Liza Minnelli and others are also featured in the broadcast.

The Museum’s Savory Collection (over 100 hours of previously unknown classic jazz from 1936-46) brought Michael to Harlem, where he did an impromptu jam with NJMH Artistic Director Loren Schoenberg, and to Grammy-award winning sound engineer Doug Pomeroy’s studio to get an in-depth look and listen to these historic recordings. Read the great NY Times Article on the Savory Collection here.

MICHAEL FEINSTEIN’S AMERICAN SONGBOOK airs as part of PBS ARTS, one of broadcast television’s only programming blocks dedicated to the best in performing arts, on Fridays, April 5, 2013, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET and April 12, 2013, 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET on PBS.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Harlem in the HimalayasAdam Kromelow Trio7:00pmLocation: Rubin Museum of Art(150 West 17th Street)$20/Door $18/Advance | For more information: rmanyc.org

Described as “the real deal” by All About Jazz and “a sensational pianist, and brilliant young musician” by The Buffalo News, pianist Adam Kromelow is making a name for himself in today’s music scene. Originally from the north suburbs of Chicago, Adam grew up listening to all kinds of music, and fostered a love for playing piano at an early age. When he was eighteen, he moved to New York City to study at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music from which he graduated in 2011. There, he was fortunate enough to study with modern jazz piano icons Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer.

Adam’s trio has been turning heads with the release of their debut album Youngblood on ZOHO Records. This album, produced by Grammy-winning pianist Arturo O’Farrill, reached #14 on the College Music Journal radio charts and has been widely acclaimed by critics. It was chosen as one of the Top Ten CDs of 2012 by The Philadelphia Inquirer, named the Debut Album of the Year by Nippertown Magazine, and hailed as “one of the most captivating discs by a jazz trio in years” by The Toledo Blade. Aside from his trio, Adam has been performing throughout the country with numerous ensembles. In the winter of 2010, he made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a guest soloist for their Welcome Yule concerts at Chicago’s Symphony Hall. In addition, Adam was selected by pianist Brad Mehldau to perform in his solo piano master class held by the Carnegie Hall Professional Training Workshop.

Leading up to our April 30th International Jazz Day concert at MIST, Jazz For Curious Listeners is focusing on the global influence of jazz with NYC’s premiere jazz musicians rooted in cross-cultural collaboration. Shipp plays a wide variety of instruments and styles, most which are based in or around jazz, which he refers to as the “big tent” in the international music world.

A comparative discussion and demonstration of what it means (and how it sounds) to be 'swinging' in the contexts of jazz, traditional Irish music, South American musics, and music from northern Africa, including both recorded examples and live examples played by percussionist James Shipp on the vibraphone, the Irish bodhran, the Brazilian pandeiro, the Peruvian cajon, and the Moroccan Qraqeb.

Brooklyn-based James Shipp is a vibraphonist, percussionist, and composer/songwriter in the creative music scene of New York City. As a multi-instrumentalist and cultural explorer, he enjoys constantly performing in new, exciting, and dispirate musical situations. As a bandleader, he enjoys blurring the lines between jazz, Brazilian music, UK folk, and open improvisation in his duo with trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis, his Brazilian band Choro Dragão, and his eclectic song-focused Irish project, Nós Novo, James studied jazz vibraphone in his conservatory days, and has since expanded into playing percussion for Afro-Brazilian and Celtic groups, as well as with several of New York’s top genre-blurring singer-songwriters and modern large ensembles.

James has performed with numerous masters of the jazz world and beyond, including vocalists Kurt Elling and Kate McGarry, saxophonists Paquito D‘Rivera, Anat Cohen, and Jane Ira Bloom, and tabla legend Ustad Zakir Hussain. In the fall of 2011, James was asked to take part in developing the percussive accompaniments to the songs of Sting’s forthcoming musical, ‘The Last Ship.’

Join us for a unique demonstration and discussion on the threads between Brazilian, Caribbean, and Celtic traditions and rhythms- not a combination you find every day!http://www.jamesshipp.com

Join us for an exquisite evening of chamber-jazz organized by soprano saxophonist Bill Kirchner, playing alongside two long-time associates. This promises to be a unique evening of improvised music in the best jazz tradition."Bill Kirchner is one of those rare musicians who is able to synthesize an awareness of the past with his own voice, taking jazz in new directions that are firmly based on tradition.” – Benny Carter “Carol Fredette is everything you need in a jazz singer. She thinks, swings and phrases like a creative instrumentalist, yet her way with words captures the essence of a lyric” – Dan Morgenstern, author, jazz historian, critic On Marc Copland “A quiet giant of his instrument…the stuff of legend” – All About Jazz.com

Thursday, April 18, 2013

NJMH and Stanford Live Presents Jazz Talks @ The CantorThe Savory Collection Side B: The Great Bands12:00pmLocation: The Cantor Arts Center @ Stanford UniversityFree | For more information: museum.stanford.edu

Loren Schoenberg, artistic director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, shares treasures from the Savory Collection, an archive of recently unearthed, rare recordings made during the swing era. “Side B”, the lecture of a series of three, includes live recordings of the great bands of Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Chick Webb.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Jazz for Curious ListenersInternational Jazz @ NJMH Featuring Scholar Aryeh Tepper on The Problematic Power of Music7:00 – 8:30pm Location: Metropolitan Community United Methodist Church,NE Corner of 126th Street and Madison Avenue, enter on 126thFREE | For more information: 212-348-8300

Leading up to our April 30th International Jazz Day concert at MIST, Jazz For Curious Listeners is focusing on the global influence of music. The title of this talk, “The Problematic Power of Music," might sound strange. What exactly is the problem? With an MP3 file in hand there’s no limit to when and where you can commune with the muse. And when the headphones come off, music is the background sound that soothes you while you're put on hold and the beat that moves you while you shop. You like what you like, and I like what I like, so what’s the problem?

But a little reflection should help us remember that music is a mysterious thing. Play the right song and you can stimulate a man to make love, or war - and sometimes the love is adulterous while the war is just. Music holds out the promise of marrying the rational and passionate parts of our soul and fashioning a harmonious personality, but it can also damn the voice of reason and, in a romantic swirl of emotion, supply the soundtrack for murder. Music is, in other words, a power, and a very ambiguous power at that.

In this talk we'll begin by taking a look at the political-philosophical tradition stretching from Plato to Nietzsche that is aware of music's ambiguous power and that takes seriously the power of music for public purposes. We'll then examine the Hebrew Bible’s two-fold teaching regarding music’s ambiguous power. The Biblical view will be deepened through philosophical, theological, and literary variations on, and illustrations of, the original Biblical principles, from Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus to Al-Ghazali's Sufi teaching. We'll conclude by exploring the limits of the Biblical teaching.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

SPECIAL EVENT: International Jazz Day with NJMHThe National Jazz Museum in Harlem Presents: International Jazz Day Jam Session Ft. Jonathan Batiste and Global Jazz Artists! Doors at 7:00pm Show at 8:00Location: MIST Harlem, 46 West 116th StreetFREE with Suggested Donation of $20 | For more information: 212-348-8300

In honor of International Jazz Day, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem will illuminate the truly global roots of jazz with an international jam session led by Jonathan Batiste. Jonathan, the museum’s Artistic Director-At-Large, will engage with musicians from all over the world to demonstrate the universal language of jazz. Featuring artists from 7 different countries the session will bring together Punjabi dhol beats from Red Baraat’s Sunny Jain, Malian kora and vocals from master griots Yacouba Sissoko and Awa Sangho, deep and thoughtful bass grooves from Japan’s Noriko Ueda, Brazilian, Caribbean and Celtic percussion and vibes by James Shipp, Bolivian folk and jazz vocals from Gian-Carla Tisera and more!

We hope you’ll join us for this evening of improvisation and ear-opening collaboration at MIST Harlem!